The Snaky Story of Hashtag

The word "hashtag" has roots in the US military. 

Sort of.

It all starts in 1907...

Enlisted men and women begin to nickname the service stripes worn on dress uniforms "hash marks."

Each stripe represents three years of duty—and untold plates of hash eaten.

Now, flash forward to 1962...

Scientists at Bell Labs add a key to the new "touch-tone" phone: the # key.

It lets callers send instructions to the phone's operating system.

They pirate a word used by mapmakers, and proudly dub the # key the "octothorpe."

An octothorpe is the mapmaker's symbol for "village" (eight fields surrounding a town square). 

"Octo," of course, means "eight;" "thorpe" means "field" in Old Norse.

But Americans already know the # key as the "pound key" from typewriters (where # means "number").

"Pound" sticks when touch-tone phones hit the market.

All along, our cousins in the UK—where "pound" refers to the symbol £—are calling # "hash."

As are computer programmers, many of whom are ex-military, and familiar with those hash marks on uniforms.

Now, flash forward to 2007...

A Silicon Valley marketer named Chris Messina sends a Tweet.

He urges everyone to use # to denote Twitter chats. 

Messina names # the “channel tag."

But Twitter's early adopters insist on calling # the "hashtag."

Finally, flash forward to 2013...

The American Dialect Society assembles in Boston to announce its prestigious "Word of the Year."

Can you guess the word?

Hint: It isn't "octothorpe."

Why Event Planners Should Be Nature-Lovers

Part 1 of a 5-part series on event design

The trade show decorator Freeman hopes to apply a decade's worth of discoveries in the field of neuroscience to event design. Freeman's Ron Graham shared with me some of the firm's background research.

"We can never have enough of nature," Thoreau wrote in Walden.

According to neuroscience research, environments rich in nature images reduce stress and improve concentration.

By incorporating imagery evocative of nature into events, planners can promote learning.


NOTE: I wrote this post in 2013, not imagining that two years later I'd be employed by Freeman. Wonders never cease. 

Too Much Information. Not.

E-com exec Hiroshi Mikitani says you can't get too much info.

“If anything, to be successful, one must embrace all kinds of information, all the time.”

Mikitani cites a passage from the 16th-century Book of Five Rings, by samurai-author Miyamoto Musashi.

Observing a carpenter at work, Musashi sees ways for readers to sharpen their skills:

The carpenter will make it a habit of maintaining his tools sharp so they will cut well. Using these sharp tools masterfully, he can make miniature shrines, writing shelves, tables, paper lanterns, chopping boards and pot-lids. These are the specialties of the carpenter. Things are similar for the soldier. You ought to think deeply about this.

"Answers and ideas are often hidden within completely unrelated things," Mikitani says. 

To spot them, you must approach the world with curiosity.

"There is nothing in the world unrelated to your life. That fire hose of information that douses you constantly is a blessing, not a curse."

The point? 

Stay open for inspiration.

How to Succeed in Business without Really Spying

Ninjas were 16th century James Bonds who were tapped by their samurai masters for the dirty work of spying, sabotage and assassination.

Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association, thinks ninjas created the die from which today's business winners are cast.

He draws out that comparison entertainingly in his new 250-page book Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses.

"Ninja innovation is my catch-all phrase for what it takes to succeed," Shapiro writes in the introduction. 

"You have to display the qualities of the ancient Japanese ninja, whose only purpose was to complete the job. He wasn't bound by precedent; he had to invent new ways."

In defining ninja innovation, Shapiro offers a quasi-memoir that might have been titled My Life in Consumer Electronics. 

The stories are fun and the major characters—including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban and Mark Zuckerberg—mostly notable.

From the book we learn that business innovators, though not literally given to spying, like James Bond are particularly single-minded. They don't think twice about breaking the "rules of the game" to win.

Shapiro scatters among the lessons lengthy gripes about US immigration policy, government regulation and unions, leftovers from his first book, The Comeback.

But the fresh material—especially his inside look at lobbying and the history of the Consumer Electronics Show—makes Shapiro's new book worth reading.

In an interview, I asked him whether business success demands that you play the tough guy.

"Absolutely not," Shapiro replied. "In fact, that's a recipe for not being successful. Instead, you have to think like a ninja. You have to be clever, creative, and think outside the box. You have to set a goal and relentlessly pursue it. You have to have a plan and a strategy and you have to be focused."

None is One

On Pike Place in Seattle, I visited the original Starbucks this week.

My stop reminded me of a favorite statement by Jean-Paul Sartre, "Even when I make a cup of coffee I change the world."

The philosopher meant your every action—large or small—affects all others.

Even though you may not want the job, you are "a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind."

What are you up to today?

The Secrets of Teamwork

Thomas Edison's great grandniece has penned Midnight Lunch, a 300-page book that reveals the inventor's four-faceted approach to teamwork.

• Edison built teams from diverse disciplines. The team that invented the lightbulb included chemists, mathmeticians and glassblowers.
  
  
• The inventorlearned from his mistakes. After state and local governments rejected his electronic vote recorder, Edison decided to focus exclusively on consumer products.
  
  
• Edison's vision kept the teams on track. When team members floundered or disagreed, the boss quickly intervened, deciding the course.
  
  
• Edison changed direction with the market. Other inventors of the day ignored the fact that consumers wanted products powered by electricity—and they failed.